First Snow
by Kay Taylor
Summary: BillCharlie, fluffy. The first snow comes, and Percy wants to go sledging.


It was usually the rain that woke them up; drumming a harsh staccato rhythm on the attic roof, splashing into the gutter and splattering against the windows until Charlie would pull the covers over his head and complain about the noise. Bill didn't really mind - he loved to lie awake in bed and listen to the sound of the weather outside, to hear the beams creaking with the wind like a clipper in a gale. Loved to lie drowsy and half-asleep, with the covers pulled up to his nose and Charlie in his arms, and rest his head on Charlie's head in the darkness, and know that he was home safe, just for the holidays. But snow, of course, is silent; coming softly through the crisp winter air in great swathes of white, settling on the roof like a blanket while they're sleeping. And so Bill never knows what woke him up, why he's sitting up in bed with Charlie curled up around him like a little-brother blanket. He runs his hands through Charlie's warm hair, still slightly dirty from too many falls in their Quidditch practice the previous day - though the game is played in the air, when the wind is high and the rain is lashing down it's too easy to fall, and then there's mud. Charlie's hair and neck are spattered with it, and Bill smiles at the memory of their mother chasing the two of them around the kitchen with a wet rag when they trooped in at night-fall, hair plastered to their heads, water streaming off their clothes.

Bill never knows what woke him up, but as Charlie drifts awake, eyes flickering open to find his brother's face only inches away from him, it doesn't really matter.

You were watching me sleep, Charlie says in a faintly accusatory tone, propping himself up on his elbow to look at Bill in the grey-and-white light that's casting surreal shadows in the room. They always leave the shutters open, just a crack; so much so that the ivy has grown around the gap, a few wizened tendrils creeping through with the daybreak. But there's a certain luminous quality to _this_ early-morning light, and Bll knows what it is.

he says, and reaches for Charlie's hand, twining their fingers together tightly. It's been snowing.

Charlie doesn't bother to ask how Bill knows, of course, because his brother knows so many things he doesn't. He's the academic, the one with perfect grades, who can always remember the dates of the Goblin Rebellions and help Charlie with his homework, the one who's proficient with every kind of locking and silencing charm, who first worked out how to join the beds together without singing the bedcovers or taking gouges out of the floor. As far as Charlie's concerned, if Bill says it's snowed, then. It must have. And so he doesn't bother going to the window to check. Instead, he lets Bill pull him closer, resting his face into the hollow of Bill's collarbone. Bill's skin tastes salty under his mouth, from the Quidditch game. He traces the curve of Bill's jaw with the tip of his tongue, and is met with a quiet noise of pleasure, a shifting of sleep-heavy limbs in the sheets. Neither of them are home for very long - the school holidays are painfully, almost brutally short - and they've learnt to make every moment of it count.

Later, they go down to the kitchen for breakfast, and they're the first ones up, padding almost noiselessly down the stairs into the darkened living room. Charlie can see what Bill means, now - it's a dull white outside, and the sky is overcast, and the light is shimmering off the snow. It makes the Burrow look unfamiliar, somehow; shabby by contrast. Bill grabs Charlie's hand at the bottom of the stairs, and almost makes him stumble, still half-drunk on sleep and kisses and sex. Charlie's never been as sure of himself on the ground as he is in the air - and the light and dark, the slowly receding heat of Bill's body, and the deep aching of his limbs makes him feel oddly as though he's not _there_. That he's watching himself follow his brother into the darkened kitchen. White and dark. Red hair, almost black in the stark light. The rounded curve of Bill's shoulders and back as he leans over, lighting the fire.

What day is it? Charlie finally asks, shaking himself awake. He slips his arms around Bill's waist, feeling the chill in the morning air now that Bill isn't next to him, around him, _inside_ him.

Bill answers quietly, searching through the cupboards for some hot chocolate. He doesn't ask why Charlie needs to ask, because they both know.

Charlie catches a flash of brilliant white from the windows as he leans in close, covering Bill's mouth with his own, slipping his hands up underneath Bill's pyjama top. They sleep naked, of course, but the rest of the family could never know.

They've been careful.

Charlie can still taste himself on Bill's lips, though, can still trace the marks he knows he must have left on Bill's back, clawing to bring his brother closer, harder. Struggling to take him deeper, to _join_ them together.

They've never been _that_ careful.

There are no sounds from upstairs, still; even when Bill hurriedly sweeps the table clear, forgetting to use a silencing charm until the very last minute, once the teacups have already fallen with a clatter (they don't break, not even on the cold flagstones, because Mrs Weasley knows well enough what would happen to her family china with a houseful of red-haired boys if she didn't take the appropriate precautions), because every now and then they _have_ to be reckless. Bill sometimes thinks that's what drives him mad at school, where they have to be careful, where they have to sleep apart. Everyone thinks he's the good student, when he's only studying Arithmancy to stop himself from obsessively studying Charlie across the common room every night, trying to stop and hold back and hold in every little impulse to kiss him, to make him sprawl backwards and spread his legs like he's doing now. Bill gathers Charlie to him, putting his warm arms between Charlie's hitched-up T-shirt and the worn wood of the kitchen table, taking him into his arms and nudging a leg between his parted thighs.

Charlie whispers, I want - and he doesn't even have time to finish before Bill's on top of him.

__

It's been snowing, Charlie thinks distractedly, and _white_, taking himself away from the slow steady movement of Bill's lips on his cock, trying to draw it out as delicious and slow as ice melting, until everything in him is shivering but still. Their eyes meet, and Charlie could almost cry out from the moist heat of Bill's breath on his exposed skin. But he doesn't, carding his hands through Bill's soft hair - a little too long for a prefect, their mother is convinced - and thinking _I love you, oh I love you_ as Bill squeezes his hand briefly, hair falling across Charlie's stomach, red on white.

Bill's hands have just slipped between his own legs, because nothing makes him _ache_ as much as seeing Charlie like this does, when they hear the first creak of landing floorboards. Bill almost doesn't register the sound, because his fingers are cool and smooth on the tip of his erection and he's taken up in the play and ebb of his tongue on Charlie's cock, and he knows that his brother is just _trying_ not to scream. But the creak is followed by footsteps, and there's panic in both of their eyes as they scramble to their feet, hastily replacing clothing and trying to remember in their hot, damningly abandoned state which side of the spoon the teacup should be placed. Bill runs his fingers through his hair; Charlie kicks the overturned sugar bowl under a pile of laundry. They have time to smile at each other, just briefly - the smile they give to each other when they _know_ no-one else is looking - before Percy pushes the door wide and stumbles into the kitchen, eyes still bleary with sleep, wanting to know if they'll take him sledging.


End file.
